Personal Responsibility, or how Harry Potter applies to real life

I started this entry a few weeks ago when trying to find ways to deal with a difficult co-worker:

Today’s mantra: I am responsible for all of my own actions, feelings, and reactions. I am only responsible for myself.

Today's post is inspired by my pain-in-the-ass coworker. This person is the epitome of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. Complain about this. Bitch about that. Make passive aggressive comments direct towards me in the meeting I'm chairing. Refuse to work together to fix apparent issues that have come up. This person is the classic example of passive-aggressive "but I'm the victim" mentality, and using that to bring others down.

I should be beyond this, but it's like being back in high school all over again: "Why don't they like me? I'm a nice person!" Watch as my self-confidence is hacked apart.

Personal responsibility is a huge part of this pagan spiritual path I'm walking (or trying to follow, at least). Over the years I always have to remind myself: I am only able to be responsible for myself. I cannot control other's reactions, but I can choose how I act, what I say, and (to an extent) how I feel. So that is my lesson for today. They can only "steal my power" if I let them. I can only feel like crap if I let myself feel like crap. I must be strong. I must be confident. And I must remember that I must be doing something right if people are feeling threatened enough to lash back like this.


Today I participated in a workshop all about learning how to deal with difficult people and stumbled upon another lesson: I can be a difficult person too, and I contribute factors to these conflicts. 

Well DUH! What a "blinding flash of the obvious," as our facilitators said.

It's another factor of personal responsibility that we can easily forget: that our actions directly contribute to the escalation and outcomes of these conflict situations. Or any situation, really. As someone who claims to follow a path that emphasizes taking responsibility for our selves, choices, and actions, I must be aware of my, shall we say "less-than-awesome" qualities. It's easy to play the victim (so-and-so is so mean, boo hoo for me) and not so easy to admit and accept that your actions were a contributing factor. I really hate being wrong/in the wrong and am loathe to admit it even when I know its true. I can see that this will be a big area for me to work on.


As for the co-worker above? She became my Boggart in a closet. Later that same day after I wrote that draft, she made another snipey comment that was just so ridiculous, the only thing I could do was laugh. And, like the dark-loving shape-shifter, the thing I was afraid of burst into a wisp of smoke and I was free to go about my day. 

The Divine works in strange ways, it heard my desperation and certainly gave me what I needed. Now, if I could only figure out how to dress Professor Snape in Neville's grandmother's clothes...

Winter is coming...

Why yes, I have been reading a lot of Game of Thrones recently, thank-you for asking!

Summer is short in the mountains. Just this past week there was frost on the cars and the grass as I walked to work, my breath fogged in the air and I wished I had a hat for my chilly ears. It's only mid-August! This is my second time through a mountain summer, and despite the snow we had last year, I'm still not used to it. Is it strange that I long for the ridiculously hot and humid summers from "back home?"

Luckily today was warm (I heard 28 degrees predicted on the news!) so the boyfriend and I spent it outside at Moraine Lake, meandering around and snapping photos of the Valley of Ten Peaks. So iconic :) We have to take advantage of as many of these warm days as we can before fall hits again...in approximately 2 weeks, lol.

My attempts to capture the amazing shade of blue on the lake

Part of the view found on the back of the old $20 bills

I make no claims at being a great photographer.

The wheel of the year keeps on turning, so we must take advantage of the nice days while they last. It will be ski season soon enough :)


EDIT: No sooner did I write that post than I was greeted with one of the most beautifully warm days of the summer. Maybe fall isn't that close after all.

What's in a name?

I've had this blog for at least two weeks now, and haven't written a thing in it. It's not for lack of ideas, the ideas and half-started posts have been rocketing around inside my skull for at least one of those two weeks, but because (sadly) I can't find a decent screen name that I think fits me. Your name says a lot in the blogosphere - will I be StarFairyRainbowBlossom, the Native-inspired WolfChild, or no-nonesense DragonLady?

Normally, I would just post under my real name, as I have done in past incarnations on both dead- and live- journals. However, circumstances have changed since my first blog's appearance on teh interwebz.

A) I now live in possibly the most red-neck province in Canada (although I'm sure Manitoba and Saskatchewan could give in a run for it's money).

B) I live in a small town in this less-than-uber-tolerant province.

C) My real name is, though not uncommon, fairly unique.

D) Though this is probably one of the most liberal towns out of all the small Albertan towns, thanks in large part to the seasonal influxes of Australian hippie ski bums and Quebecois kids looking to party the summer away, there's a lot of staunch conservative God-fearing folks who I live and work with who may not look to kindly on a self-professed wannabe-witch.

Oh, and E) I don't even know if this is the path I'm supposed to be on. Why come out as a witch only to turn around and announce I'm turning Catholic again!

So yes, I need a screen name. A blogging-persona. Something that is not the name on my birth certificate or driver's license.  I've been mulling it over for two weeks, and I can't come up with a damn thing. Nothing comes to mind that doesn't sound like an airy-fairy fluff bunny or an artificially scented feminine cleansing product. (Seriously, check out my name over on Witchvox. )

I've been an armchair witch for a few years now, and this blog is to choronical my attempts at getting my nose out of the books and starting to really explore this whole "witch" thing. To develop a real relationship with the divinity I feel in the world around me and learn the craft of the wise. To learn to do by doing, if you will. But, as most of my practice has been reading books and all of your lovely and inspiring blogs, I haven't really figured out the staples of the typical witchy-naming-thing. I don't exactly have a patron god or goddess who I mostly work with (hell, I don't even have a pantheon, besides "vaguely-Celtic-but-Egypt's-got-some-cool-myths-too"), I haven't developed an affinity with a certain plant due to a lack of growing space and a really short growing season, nor am I sure if I'll be a kitchen/domestic/garden/witch/Wiccan/whatever, or can I claim to be a really outdoorsy back-woods loving mountain-woman.

What I DO have, is an experience. A couple experiences, to be exact. Those that made me know that the Divine was was more than just within the walls of my family's Catholic church, but out there, vibrant, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and so very much ALIVE.

My last summer living in my native Southern Ontario was a wet and stormy one, filled with massive deluges, floods and windstorms where you could stand outside and feel that there was something else out there in the storm. These warm, sticky, humid nights made itch to get out of the house and lose myself in the magic of the night. You could feel it, it was alive. I felt if I could just walk for long enough in the dark, somehow I'd be able to lose myself and become part of it. That I could meet that presence I could feel out there, that goddess of the night who called me and made my soul long to join it. Those summer nights were the start of my journey, and the most real thing about my path. When I feel like I might be play-acting at the rest, those nights I know. 

So I'm keeping an abbreviated version of my semi-douchey Witchvox handle, because right now it's all I know for sure.